After the release of the SNES in
1991, Nintendo started thinking of developing a CD-ROM version of their
console because of the medium's advantages and in order to compete with
rivals (Sega and NEC) who were all heading down this path.
They got together with Sony, which
eventually came up with the Playstation: A CD-ROM extension that sat
beneath the SNES console and allowed 680MB CD games to be played.
After Nintendo realized that Sony had a cleverly-worded agreement that
allowed them to license all SNES CD-based games, the two companies
abandoned the deal.

Not wanting to trash all their
hard work on the Playstation, Sony continued developing it on their own.
The new 32-bit standalone Playstation was built from the ground up and was
not an extension of the one developed for Nintendo's SNES. In fact,
so much work had been put into it that the end result in 1994 was
completely different than the initial concept drawn up in 1991. The
PS had the advantage (over the Saturn) of an extremely easy development
environment, which attracted many third-party games developers. It
also sold for $100 cheaper than the Saturn in the US, which attracted
consumers.

The Playstation was released in
1994 and enjoyed great success, mainly because of the company's strong
financial back enabling it to market the PS widely and its ability to get
hundreds of developers to license games for the console. Playstation
sales figures were concrete proof that Sega and Nintendo had to be on
their guards and start worrying about their latest and most dangerous
competitor.

The Playstation retailed for
$299 and has sold over 50 million units worldwide. Its library
contains almost 1000 games! In 1999, Sony released an updated
version of the PS dubbed the PSOne that was both cheaper and smaller.